What Kind Of Country Are We Becoming? Title IX Being Used To Punish Free Speech On Campus
That is, when it isn't being used to deny men on campus due process.
In the free speech-denying vein, North Carolina's Greensboro College forced all incoming freshman to attend a play on sexual assault and then, after some heckled the thing, promised to identify and punish them.
Blake Neff writes for The Daily Caller:
The college says it has launched an investigation under Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education."Under our new Sexual Misconduct policy, the comments that have been reported qualify as sexual harassment," said college president Lawrence Czarda in a campuswide email. "The college is pursuing a formal complaint of sexual misconduct against the students and is working to identify them. Upon results of the investigation, those found responsible will face disciplinary consequences." What sort of consequences the students could face is unclear, but the school's penalties for sexual harassment go all the way up to expulsion.
What's truly offensive is that, under Greensboro's sexual harassment policy, that this heckling is considered a sexual harassment and not just rude, per this bit from their definition of what sexual harassment is:
3. such conduct has the purpose or effect of interfering with an individual's academic or professional performance, or of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive employment or educational environment.
"Offensive"? Who's to say what "offensive" is?
And has the "effect of interfering..."? What if I tell a dirty joke and you overhear it, and you happen to be emotionally fragile and stay in bed and cry for a month?
This is a terrible -- and pernicious -- set of standards. It will likely take a few lives ruined -- probably mostly (or entirely) male lives -- before there's some sort of overturning in court of Title IX being applied this way, and the same goes for these principles which are so antithetical to those this country is supposed to stand for.
This country we live in has been the United States of Civil Liberties since its founding, compared to any other country in the world. Now, tragically and disgustingly, it's starting to veer in the direction of the USSR.
Years ago, a Preacher from a small southern town near where I grew up, made the local news about his sermon that the movie Animal House was about how Satan was corrupting our youth on college campuses. Now I know what became of him. He's become a college Diversity Coordinator.
Wfjag at September 10, 2015 3:22 AM
They're bureaucrats. They have rules, and enforce them mindlessly. The only way to fight them is with their own rules: make them live according to those rules, file formal complaints early and often.
Some female classmate hugged you without consent? sexual assault, and yes you should file a complaint. Tie them up with enough work, and they won't have time to go looking for trouble. Punch back twice as hard.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 10, 2015 6:30 AM
"What if I tell a dirty joke and you overhear it, and you happen to be emotionally fragile and stay in bed and cry for a month?"
This bullshit already happens in the workplace. A few years ago an IT conference made the news. A lady thought she overheard two guys at the conference tell a dirty joke. She reported it to the conference who then passed it along to the employer of the two men who were then fired over it.
Ben at September 10, 2015 6:57 AM
Ben, I blogged about this here:
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/03/25/women_are_mens.html
Amy Alkon at September 10, 2015 7:50 AM
Michigan State is under the Department of Justice's microscope.
Over a student who didn't report her allegations to them, but directly to the local constabulary, who found said accusations to be unfounded.
I R A Darth Aggie at September 10, 2015 8:51 AM
That is probably where I first saw it Amy. I know the commenters over at Arz Technica were mostly pitchfork and tar types.
I've lived with this double standard since the day I was born. By now I'm old enough and rich enough I don't have to hold my tongue any more for fear of reprisal. I've seen the SNL sexual harassment sketch in real life. What is the difference between flirting and sexual harassment? How attractive the guy is. The same thing with racism, where you have to get out a color pallet and compare the skin colors of the speaker and the listener to tell if it was racist.
But I guess that's the old saw. Money doesn't make you a better or even worse person. I just lets you show how big of an asshole you always were.
Ben at September 10, 2015 10:43 AM
Ben is dead on.
The template is that If he works in the mail room it is "sexual harassment." If he works in the executive suite it is "sophisticated repartee."
Jay at September 10, 2015 10:58 AM
It apologizes for having a penis or it gets the hose again.
And not a euphemistic hose, either, but a LGBT-friendly anti-white-privilege decidedly non-cisgendered hose.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at September 10, 2015 1:54 PM
Of possible interest:
SJWs Always Lie: Taking Down the Thought Police
Karl Lembke at September 11, 2015 12:59 PM
There sure seem to be a lot of goofy left-wing hysterics coming from North Carolina lately. Am I going to have to move out of -here- now?
Alan at September 12, 2015 9:18 PM
Leave a comment